The heart of a computer is a magnetic hard disk drive (HDD) which typically includes a rotating magnetic disk, a slider that has read and write heads, a suspension arm above the rotating disk and an actuator arm that swings the suspension arm to place the read and/or write heads over selected circular tracks on the rotating disk. The suspension arm biases the slider into contact with the surface of the disk when the disk is not rotating but, when the disk rotates, air is swirled by the rotating disk adjacent an air bearing surface (ABS) of the slider causing the slider to ride on an air bearing a slight distance from the surface of the rotating disk. When the slider rides on the air bearing the write and read heads are employed for writing magnetic impressions to and reading magnetic signal fields from the rotating disk. The read and write heads are connected to processing circuitry that operates according to a computer program to implement the writing and reading functions.
The volume of information processing in the information age is increasing rapidly. In particular, it is desired that HDDs be able to store more information in their limited area and volume. A technical approach to this desire is to increase the capacity by increasing the recording density of the HDD. To achieve higher recording density, further miniaturization of recording bits is effective, which in turn typically requires the design of smaller and smaller components.
The further miniaturization of the various components, however, presents its own set of challenges and obstacles.
As the size of the various magnetic head components continue to become smaller, conventional products are forced to move their stitch poles farther away from the ABS to prevent leakage of flux while writing to a magnetic medium. However, this increased spacing between the stitch pole and the ABS results in weaker write fields, longer delays, and decreased efficiency of the head. Thus, it is desirable to produce a design which overcomes such disadvantages.
Various approaches described and/or suggested herein preferably include a magnetic head having a tapered stitch pole which improves efficiency of the head. The tapered stitch pole preferably allows for a reduction in the distance between the stitch pole and the ABS without causing flux leakage.